Why not demo it live? Why only play recordings? When is it rolling out to actual customers? Was there a hands-on after the event where members of the media or conference attendees could talk to Duplex? It’s totally credible that Google would be the first to achieve something like Duplex, but the fact that all they did — as far as I’ve seen — was play a recording just seems off. It feels like a con.

Tech demos are neat, but if it doesn’t exist in a shipping product, what’s the point? Google can brag all they want about Duplex and the tech press can write infinite hot takes about how Apple’s years behind, but I’m skeptical of this ever becoming available with the polish they claimed it to have.